(Topic ID: 125919)
Linked Games
Atlantis
Gottlieb, 1975-
Kings & Queens
Gottlieb, 1965
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Road Race
Gottlieb, 1969
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Surf Champ
Gottlieb, 1976
Topic Gallery
Québec, QC
Finleyville, PA
Quoted from RTS:Thanks, great info. I think the material is called Backlit Film or "duratrans."
Can you confirm the print dimensions from your template are 7.5" width x 5.75" height?
I saw this online printer that will do those custom dimensions for $15 plus shipping. Still would require cutting out holes.
https://posterprintshop.com/product/backlit-film
Also attempted another image. These are from tiny files I found. [quoted image]
Nice! I hadn't seen the pic - yeah that's the hard part, finding decent scans to work with.
Quoted from FlipperFix:Add me to the hopeful second batch list too please.
You got it.
Quoted from PhilGreg:As for masking only certain areas, I didn't do it, but you would probably need to use a cameo vinyl cutter (or do it by hand) and stick it to the back of your printed translite.
I'm pretty sure that's what the guy who made my North Star translite did:
I'm pretty sure that is what he did too. 
How am I just now seeing these? These are awesome, you sir are a true artist!
Quoted from Atari_Daze:I'm pretty sure that is what he did too.
How am I just now seeing these? These are awesome, you sir are a true artist!
Ha! Sorry I didn't give you credit, I wasn't sure you wanted the publicity! 
Atari_Daze is the one that made the North Star translite I showed above.
Quoted from PhilGreg:Ha! Sorry I didn't give you credit
Oh it's not problem, I was just supporting your assumption. If I can answer any other questions, feel free to let me know.
I'd love to be on the list for the next batch myself.
Quoted from Atari_Daze:I'd love to be on the list for the next batch myself.
You got it!
Here's the first "Batch 1" PCB off the assembly line!
IMG_3885 (resized).JPG 1 week later
It's been a while since the last post so I figured I'd give some news.
I've been running my first white PCB on "accelerated" mode (10 seconds = 1 minute) for the last 2 week for testing. All good!
Meanwhile I've produced a few more, still not finished.
I'm pretty much done with painting the cabs - I'll go over them again to see if there are any major flaws but if not that should be it.
I've made my order of 3D printed parts for the reel assemblies - I should get them next week, then I can sand the wheels and start putting it all together. I'll keep you guys updated.
Quoted from PhilGreg:It's been a while since the last post so I figured I'd give some news.
Looking good! Appreciate the updates.
@philgreg, Haven't visited your thread in a while and amazed at the beautiful craftsmanship and design, and all the progress you've made!
Please put me down for one if there's still room in batch 2, otherwise pencil me in for batch 3. Already dreaming of some nice art ideas...
Quoted from Dr-Tommy:PhilGreg, Haven't visited your thread in a while and amazed at the beautiful craftsmanship and design, and all the progress you've made!
Please put me down for one if there's still room in batch 2, otherwise pencil me in for batch 3. Already dreaming of some nice art ideas...
Thank you for the kind words sir. You are penciled in.
Quoted from PhilGreg:Thank you for the kind words sir. You are penciled in.
Super nice! I'd like to be on the list as well. Merci Phil!
Thank you everyone! I am taking names down - just to let you know I'm up to 28 now.
Again, still not 100% a second run is going to happen - I need to take a step back once this run is done and see how much total time I spent and how I can improve the process. I very much would like to and will definitely try to do it, but I have to manage the logistics with the daytime job and family life.
If indeed it does, not sure either how many I'll make at that point but I will contact people in order for the opportunity to get in.
Cheers!
I am in on the order. If someone wants my spot at what it cost let me know. This is if PhilGreg is willing.
MrMikeman has it if PhilGreg is ok with it.
Quoted from dung:I am in on the order. If someone wants my spot at what it cost let me know. This is if PhilGreg is willing.
I’ll take your spot if Phil is ok with it.
Somebody that got in on the first batch mentioned that the font for the 4 was different than actual Gottlieb reels. I knew that, but I should have figured you had to be somewhat OCD to be interested in any of this stuff in the first place (I am too! ) and that I'd hear about it, so I went ahead and made the change.
I also fixed the 7 while I was in there - not the exact same font, but close enough now.
Thanks for bringing it up! I'll order these this week and should get them around the same time as the reels themselves.
pasted_image (resized).png
(Sorry, for some reason I can't get rid of the big pictures of the numbers)
pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).pngAs shipping time is getting closer I figured it was a good idea to test that the machine can handle some tumbling while in the box.
It was pretty hard to bring myself to rough it too hard as you can see in the video 
, but I'm hoping with a big bold FRAGILE writing on the box they don't go much rougher than that.
IMG_3959 (resized).JPG
IMG_3960 (resized).JPG
IMG_3961 (resized).JPG
I checked the before and after alignment of the reels and that nothing was broken, and it passed the test.
Quoted from PhilGreg:but I'm hoping with a big bold FRAGILE writing on the box they don't go much rougher than that.
box.gifQuoted from Atari_Daze:[quoted image]
Kudos on you for testing the package. The way I've seen some delivery guys, you might want to see if it survives a drop kick lol
My college roommate had a job at a FedEx packaging test facility where companies would send them their products to test how survivable they were. Sometimes they didn't even want the product back, so he'd get something like a vacuum cleaner for free on occasion. At the time it was illegal to ship wine back, so they had a whole closet full of cheap wine he'd take a bottle from on Fridays.
Quoted from TreyBo69:Kudos on you for testing the package. The way I've seen some delivery guys, you might want to see if it survives a drop kick lol
My college roommate had a job at a FedEx packaging test facility where companies would send them their products to test how survivable they were. Sometimes they didn't even want the product back, so he'd get something like a vacuum cleaner for free on occasion. At the time it was illegal to ship wine back, so they had a whole closet full of cheap wine he'd take a bottle from on Fridays.
As you can see from the video I was a bit hesitant to drop it from too high but since it came out intact and I do have all the parts for the other units in case I break anything (plus a few spare parts) it might make sense to give it another go like in the GIF posted above.
I'll think about it and let you know how that goes if I do
Quoted from PhilGreg:I checked the before and after alignment of the reels and that nothing was broken, and it passed the test.
I thought for sure you'd at least punt the box down the drive. That would ensure UPS and Fedex stability.
Being Canadian, I thought there was going to be a hockey stick involved in the testing a la Gaston Gingras style
Ok, I've been pretty busy with summer things these last few weeks, but I was able to get some progress.
Here's the first functional unit for batch 1. It's been sitting on my bar top running for a few days.
Next up is full assembly to have a completed unit #1 ready to ship.
Once that's done I might work on the next few in parallel.
Phil, I was wondering. If you are able to know what number each real is on with this setup, what is stopping you from creating a small screen high score display for ems?
Quoted from lint:Phil, I was wondering. If you are able to know what number each real is on with this setup, what is stopping you from creating a small screen high score display for ems?
Nothing! The calibration application I use communicates through the Arduino USB port (you can see this here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-score-reel-clock-project/page/5#post-6257224)
Currently the mode of operation only supports +1 increments on each reel, but with relatively minor code adjustments it could also be fed any given number. The Arduino has internal memory as well so it could keep a number in memory when it's shut down.
Although in order to know what each number is it first needs to reset all reels to 0, so each time you shut it down there would be a reset sequence before it goes to the appropriate number.
Quoted from PhilGreg:Nothing! The calibration application I use communicates through the Arduino USB port (you can see this here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-score-reel-clock-project/page/5#post-6257224)
Currently the mode of operation only supports +1 increments on each reel, but with relatively minor code adjustments it could also be fed any given number. The Arduino has internal memory as well so it could keep a number in memory when it's shut down.
Although in order to know what each number is it first needs to reset all reels to 0, so each time you shut it down there would be a reset sequence before it goes to the appropriate number.
So would this calibration application conceivably allow for automatically adjusting the time at powerup if we had wifi connectivity with the arduino so it could determine the time from our home internet?
Quoted from RTS:So would this calibration application conceivably allow for automatically adjusting the time at powerup if we had wifi connectivity with the arduino so it could determine the time from our home internet?
Yes that would be doable, but the same thing can be achieved much more simply. First, you'll notice the little board sticking out of the PCB is an RTC module. At first I was just using the Arduino's internal clock to keep time, and while that did do a decent job, I figure a clock has to do better than decent and decided to used the RTC instead, which keeps much better time.
Now, as I did it, I just tweaked the code instead of rewriting to fully support the RTC's functionalities. If you put a battery in the socket and write the code to support it, it would keep time even when powered off.
Being a software engineer, I like the Agile principles and one of them is to deliver fully working slices of functionalities before adding new features. That's why I figured, let's get this working solid before I entertain adding functionalities. If I ever do get around to that though, I'm pretty sure it would be just a firmware update that wouldn't require hardware modifications so existing clocks could probably be updated to support it (probably! Haven't tried it yet...)
As for Wi-Fi support, there are Wi-Fi modules as well so if you had that on the hardware end you'd probably need a computer just once to configure the connection, then it would connect on its own and be able to synchronize.
Again, not focusing on any of this stuff at the moment, I'm not calling anything done with this iteration until all 12 units are shipped and running happily in their new homes.
Quoted from PhilGreg:Nothing! The calibration application I use communicates through the Arduino USB port (you can see this here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-score-reel-clock-project/page/5#post-6257224)
Currently the mode of operation only supports +1 increments on each reel, but with relatively minor code adjustments it could also be fed any given number. The Arduino has internal memory as well so it could keep a number in memory when it's shut down.
Although in order to know what each number is it first needs to reset all reels to 0, so each time you shut it down there would be a reset sequence before it goes to the appropriate number.
About that calibration app, it has evolved a bit since that "first contact" video.
Here's a shot of calibrating one of the units.
IMG_40372 (resized).jpgQuoted from PhilGreg:Units 2,3 and 4 currently in work.
Oh, so close! Can't wait!
These are looking great! I so hope you are enjoying the process, because round 2 would be amazing! =) can't wait for an unboxing video! I need to learn how to code, I would love to add at least a speaker to mimic the chime sounds to ding every 15 min and then on the hour like a regular clock but with the bonus count down scoring chime like my Playmatic Fiesta game.
Ugh. I really regret not jumping on the first batch when I could.
Honestly they look great even without a tiny backglass
Phil, I may have missed it in 8 pages, what is the discussion about pared down translites for these?
I'm sure you know why I inquire? 
Quoted from Atari_Daze:Phil, I may have missed it in 8 pages, what is the discussion about pared down translites for these?
I'm sure you know why I inquire?
Hello - since I don't own any of the IP, I want this project to be legit so I'm not offering a translite. This is in part why I've tried to make the machine look good without it (frankly at this point I personally even like that better since you can better see the reels).
What I did is that I provided a GIMP template for people who do want to make their own, and shown the material, which I think is Duratrans which I'm guessing is available at most print shops.
For my Atlantis prototype I did not do any masking and I thought that looked pretty good, but with masking it might be a step better.
Now, of course since you made that beautiful replacement translite for my North Star restoration (which is on the previous page), I'm sure you're a good reference and people who are interested in getting one made should get in touch with you
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